Art

It’s not quite an art gallery, not quite a language school, and not quite a music venue.

But El Taller Latino-Americano is a little bit of all those things, and most of all it has become a cultural institution on the Upper West Side over the last two decades. With rising rents, it’s about to be driven out of the area.

“Despite the fact that we are a not-for-profit educational organization, the rent which we engage in with the landlord is commercial,” said Bernardo Palombo, a founder of El Taller.

It’s expected to rise from $8000to $22,000 per month next year.

“What for us is human space is for others mathematics and numbers,” said Palombo.

This is not the first time Manhattan’s property market has forced them to move.

They started out on 19th Street and 7th Avenue almost 35 years ago, before moving a little further uptown, then across to the basement of a Russian cathedral in the Lower East Side. They’ve been in their current space on 104th Street and Broadway for the last 22 years.

“Now we are here, and probably next year we will be in Canada, because the whole history of gentrification pushes people to el norte, so we are going to el norte again,” said Palombo.

He has a plan for El Taller – to develop an urban garden, community kitchen, centre for immigrants’ rights and a three-penny university – if he can find a way to stay in the building.

The three-penny university would include workshops from current and former Columbia University professors and community members.

“Dona Maria, a Puerto Rican woman who lives next to my house, will teach handy 22 point crochet,” said Palombo, “And the younger characters that are selling drugs in the avenue will teach texting to the old farts like me.”

El Taller has submitted the proposal to two different arts foundations, suggesting they buy the building and help expand the organization.

But if the rent rises as expected, it is likely Palombo and El Taller will have to find a new home for these big ideas to unfold.

Artist Steve Lambert shakes the hand of a curious pedestrian at his “Capitalism works for me!” exhibit in Times Square yesterday. Photo by Zoe Lake.

Artist Steve Lambert knows how to draw a crowd.

Curious pedestrians gathered in Times Square yesterday afternoon in front of an enormous blinking blue and white sign reading “Capitalism works for me!”

This is Lambert’s art. Two digital scoreboards labeled ‘true’ and ‘false’ glowed red underneath the bright lights of ‘capitalism,’ beckoning onlookers to cast a vote at an erected podium before the sign. Lambert, the creator of the sign, stood at its side encouraging bystanders to participate in his work, by voting and discussing the issue.

“You’ve thought this through?” he asked one participant cocking his head and raising his reddish brown eyebrows under a felt fedora, “you ready to go?”

Lambert is engaging as he worked the crowd with lots of laughs and strong handshakes. His distinctive long red beard and thick framed glasses setting him apart from the throngs of touristy looking spectators that gather around him and his artwork.

Raised by parents who both left religious callings, (his mother was a former nun, his father, an ex-monk), Lambert struggled in life to create meaningful artwork.

“There was a point I thought, ‘what was the most important thing I can do?’ I wanted to do something about capitalism that wasn’t tedious, and was fun,” he said.

The purpose, the artist explained, is to create a space for people to think about a political issue and come up with better solutions.

Lambert is no stranger to making a political statement. In 2008, in collaboration with dozens of other artists and writers, Lambert successfully distributed in New York City, and in other cities around the nation, over 80,000 copies of a fake future edition of the New York Times that declared the Iraq War over, and placed former President George W. Bush, and Vice President Dick Cheney on trial for war crimes. The tagline of the phony paper read, “All the News We Hope to Print.”

In another artist collaboration, Lambert founded the Anti Advertising Agency, an ongoing project that he and other participating artists hope will redirect the way the American public view commercial advertising and its saturation into the American life. Lambert’s piece on capitalism, displayed yesterday, and on display again from October 6 through the 9th, in the ad soaked bowtie of Times Square, is an extension of his desire to reshape the American understanding of advertisement.

“I have great admiration for advertisement and signs,” Lambert said. “I don’t like the way they are used but what they do is incredible. I use the tools of advertising to pull people in a different direction. I am not trying to make art for an exclusive audience.”

Nearby Lambert stood a beaming Sherry Dobbin. The director of public art in Times Square, Dobbin is responsible for bringing together Lambert and the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF), whose 2013 Crossing the Line Festival of the Arts is cosponsoring the Times Square installment.

“As soon as I heard about Steven from other curators, I said this has to happen in Times Square,” she said. “It’s the right site and the right timing. One of the things we like to do is pick challenging pieces that are site specific, that engage people get them thinking. I am very excited to see this happen. It is such an iconic space for free speech, freedom of the press, [and] the free market, Times Square is an ideal location.”

On average over 350,000 pedestrians pass through Times Square every day making it an ideal venue for interactive installation art. Graphic designer Daniel Dunnan, 34, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, came to Times Square today to see the piece and chose also to participate by voting against capitalism.

“I was a little torn,” he said “I think capitalism does work for me. I indisputably live a very charmed existence, but I know people who it doesn’t work for, and I would like it to work for everyone.”

Lambert said Times Square could not provide a better platform to reach a large audience and foster discussion. Capitalism, the artist thinks, is not socially acceptable to talk about.

“We literally need a large flashing sign to create a space for it,” he said. “All great things are complicated.”

The world remembers several iconic images from the tragedy that struck the World Trade Center on September 11. The planes spearing through the towers at a rapid speed. The billowing fire. The towers crumbling to the ground. Maria Segaline remembers the smell.

“As soon as you got out of the train, you could smell it,” said Segaline, a 45 year-old Bolivian immigrant from Queens who worked at the World Trade Center and returned to work soon after the attacks. “We realized that it was the smell of burning. It wasn’t a nice smell, it was a horrible smell.”

After working there for almost a year, Segaline started to get sick. “I couldn’t talk because my voice was hoarse and I had the flu,” she said. “My throat swelled.”

She didn’t think it was the toxic air that lingered in the wake of that tragic day. She continued to work 12 or 16 hour workdays and medicated herself only with hot tea at home. Because she worked alone, her co-workers never saw her suffer from a high fever or take a break to vomit at work. She said she never went to see a doctor because she needed to work.

Segaline finally went to see a doctor in 2005 to get treatment under the World Trade Center Health Program available through the Bellevue Hospital Center in Midtown Manhattan, which offers medical and psychological treatment to responders after the attacks and people who worked or lived in the area. As part of her treatment, she got involved in an art therapy program for survivors.

“In 2005, I was another person because the whole time I was fighting for my body. I was so sick. I don’t like to remember it,” she said.

At the time she was also suffering from depression. “But the program helped me change my ideas and thoughts,” she said. “I’m now more happy.”

Segaline is one of about 14 participants in the World Trade Center Health Program’s art therapy program who featured their artwork in an exhibition at the Bellevue Hospital Center. The exhibition features 35 pieces of artwork by people who lived and worked in Lower Manhattan or helped in the September 11 cleanup and are now suffering from medical and emotional health problems. Their art offers them a creative release for the trauma they experienced on that horrific day and the health problems they continue to battle now.

Maria Segaline, 45, of Queens, creates dolls based off of Aymara, an indigenous community in Bolivia. Photo credit: Leticia Miranda.

“Before I could work normally,” said Segaline. She paused to let out a quiet wet cough. “Now I am more limited but the art has helped me a lot.” She has been a participant in the program for eight years where she makes small dolls of Aymara, an Indigenous community in Bolivia. She hopes to craft dolls inspired by Cherokee natives.

Each week the participants gather for about two hours to work on their art pieces. Sometimes they have directives like reminiscence, homeland, the seasons or a theme like self care, coping tools. But mostly it’s a free two hours to be creative and express their inner thoughts through their art.

“Art is therapeutic for people who have this form of trauma,” said Irene Rosner David, Director of Therapeutic Arts at the Bellevue Hospital Center, who has lead the program since it’s beginning in 2005. “It can help them move in their recovery process towards a more adaptive way of life by acknowledging the past and moving forward.”

Rosner David said the title of this year’s exhibition was chosen to capture the program participants’ evolution towards healing from that traumatic day.
“There has been gradual more of the uplifting elements,” she said. “More intense color, more elements of nature. It’s not like there aren’t any elements that feature traumatic experiences, but we’re also seeing messages dealing with the here and now and moving on.

“It gets me up in the morning,” she said. Before the program, Segaline was extremely depressed. She said she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She was afraid and wanted to stay inside her house. She still can’t work because she fatigues quickly and has trouble breathing but art therapy has given her an outlet to pass her long days at home.

“Before I didn’t want to live,” said Segaline. “Now I wake up in the morning. I clean my house. I take my medicine. I want to live.”

The exhibition will be open to visitors in the hospital center’s lobby during weekdays until September 18.

Struggling artists and hopeful gallery owners fled to Bushwick in search of building a new art scene. They were also in search of cheap rent so they acquired Bushwick’s abandoned buildings. Now, hopes of the area becoming a breeding ground for a new, experimental art scene have become a magnet for more people, more businesses and anything else indicating “next big thing”.

With each next big gallery opening, Bushwick’s art scene moves a little closer to being a pricey twin to Williamsburg’s art scene. As a result, some older Bushwick residents aren’t only priced out of their neighborhoods, they’re also disconnected from the art community coming in. But some artists are attempting to connect.

William Powhida, an artist who relocated to Bushwick from Williamsburg a few years ago, highlights the “social significance of the $13 hamburger”, brought into Bushwick by a wave of artists in his piece, “Things I Think about when I Think about Bushwick”.

“There are changes that people in the community are in support of,” said Powhida. “There’s less crime, less shootings, there’s not a drug war going on anymore, but at the same time, prices of milk goes up. The restaurants come in and the hamburgers are $13 dollars. There’s not a lot of development centered around the community. It’s centered around artists and their tastes,” he said.

In turn, some of Powhida’s work and interests are centered on Bushwick’s art world and how gentrification pushes much of the community onto the outskirts.

“We are the harbingers of gentrification,” said artist, Jennifer Dalton. “One way of looking at it is neighborhoods change and that is natural, but another way of looking at it is artists are on the frontlines of ruining other people’s situations and space. It’s ethically complicated,” she said.

Dalton, co-curator of Auxiliary Projects, an art gallery in Bushwick which sells pieces for under $300 in order to make them available to a wider and more diverse audience. She feels that although many of Bushwick’s changes are centered on artists, they have supported the community by turning empty spaces into useable ones.

“Look, people are here mainly to show their work, not necessarily to represent the community,” said artist, Deborah Brown. “We artists need to think of ways to build their community and be a part of the art dialogue.”.
Brown is the owner of Storefront Gallery and also on Bushwick’s Community Board. Many of Bushwick’s issues, from street lights to education initiatives are familiar to Brown. She’s also very keen on the art community finding ways to become more involved in Bushwick.

“…the community doesn’t really go to galleries,” said Brown.”…it’s presumptuous; they’ve been here for 30 years. They aren’t interested in seeing white artists. Who’s going to do that?”

Joe Ficalora, creator of 5 Points Bushwick , an ongoing street art project between Wycoff and St. Nicholas Avenue on Troutman Street, said Bushwick residents would probably visit Bushwick’s 50-plus galleries more often if they could connect to them more.

“Kids should go home and pick up a pen after seeing these murals and say I connected to this…”

Ficalora grew up in Bushwick and said his exposure to baseball kept him out of trouble. He feels art could do the same for kids today.

“It’s about sharing,” he said. “Why can’t we be responsible for having that impression for the community, for the kids?”

Brown feels that that despite the changes in the physical landscape, artists should get to know their neighbors.

“We have totally different experiences but it gets you out of your cocoon,” she said. “The art community has their own lives and they’re not drawn into the larger community unless they want to be. Efforts are just at the beginning but artists have to get the ball rolling,” said Brown.

David Everitt-Carlson, 55, paints signs for Occupy Wall Street protests on Columbus Day. His advertising agency in New York went bankrupt after 9/11, leaving him unemployed and homeless. Photo By: Mina Sohail

Sitting in a cardboard box turned into a makeshift shelter at the Occupy Wall Street protest in Zuccotti Park yesterday, David Everitt-Carlson painted a sign that read, “I think outside my box.”

Carlson, 55, has been living in a midtown homeless shelter, but has made daily treks to Zuccoti Park, painting signs and protesting what he believes are the issues that led to his unemployment.

A former advertising executive, he has been unemployed for about a year and is an example of the frustration that many of the protestors say they feel.

“I’m here because I don’t have a job,” he said. “I’m a senior person, I should be paid decent, but no one’s hiring.”

Carlson said the preoccupation of the government was with war and bailing banks out, not with helping Americans.

“The government has been in war for 10 years,” he said. “But I can’t find a single person who has benefitted from it.”

Carlson drew a pie chart on paper and shaded a portion to illustrate his point.

“This is the military spending in the world and America occupies 45 percent of it,” he said.

With thousands of people holding signs and chanting slogans, Carlson sat among dozens of posters and said he finds peace in painting slogans he comes up with himself. He takes his time with each one.

“Since 1:30 a.m. I have been working on one panel,” he said. “It’s 6:00 p.m. now.”

He said that the material for the signs and paint was donated. A nearby sign that he had painted two weeks ago was placed in front of a tree. It read, “The medium is the message.”

Carlson learned sign painting in college to make money. He uses that skill now to help the movement, he said.

In 1979 he graduated from Southern Illinois University where he majored in corporate communications and minored in journalism. Later, he worked in the advertising industry and in 1995 was transferred to Korea by the agency he worked for. The company did not do well, so in 1997 he returned and opened his own international advertising agency in New York.

“As the planes hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, the financial crisis hit my business and my company crashed in a week,” he said. “I didn’t have a single billing after 9/11 and I had people to pay.”

Carlson said when President George Bush coined the term “axis of evil” his American clients did not want to invest in Korea and Korean clients did not want to invest in America, which killed his business.

He said the economy has been bad ever since.

Carlson is divorced and he has no children. He does have an 82-year-old father and two younger sisters, but they would not understand his plight.

“This whole situation is above my family’s heads,” he said.

Carlson carries his laptop everywhere and blogs his journey as a homeless man.

Art is the latest expression of protest for the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, and for 24 hours yesterday the abandoned JP Morgan building on Wall Street was the site of artistic protest.

Artist Andy Golub, 45, from Nyack, N.Y., painted a protester’s entire body in public. As he brushed black lines around her legs and up her torso to accent the colorful patches of paint, three uniformed police officers on horses watched while another group of officers approached them and told them they could not stand outside.

Golub instructed the protester, Yell, 24, of Bushwick, Brooklyn, to move with him, but at first she talked back to the officers. She told them she was a part of the exhibit inside. But Golub wanted to avoid arrest and ushered his model inside the building.

Golub and Yell were there as a part of the “No Comment” art exhibit, where various forms of art including sculpture, paint, video and spoken word were on display. The exhibit, according to the Occupy Wall Street website, aimed to show “the current paradigm shift of human expression and the emerging social condition.”

“I’m supportive of the people,” Golub said. “I wanted to come down here and feel the energy, by painting that is how I experience it. With art if it has a specific message then why do you need art?”

Yell had recently moved out of her Brooklyn apartment because she could not afford it. She now lives in Zuccotti Park along with the rest of the protesters who have been dedicated to the movement since the beginning. During one of the protests she was even sprayed with pepper spray by police.

“I want to keep fighting,” she said. “A presence is growing bigger everyday. I’m very proud to be a part of it. My biggest hope is already a victory, to get people’s attention.”

Erik Hendrickson, 24, from Trenton, N.J., is a sculptor who came down for the Occupy Wall Street protests early in the movement. He said this art exhibit was about extending his voice to another medium. His contribution to the exhibit was a flag made up of dollar bills. Hendrickson later burned a few parts of the flag.

“[This piece] is about looking at why do we have money,” he said. “Why is it a prevailing culture? There is so much emphasis on obtaining and gathering money to buy more stuff. I think it’s time for something else to come down the pipeline.”

Along with his friend, Martin Melendro, 22, of Trenton, N.J., Hendrickson patiently sat and constructed his flag at the exhibit. Later the flag was raised and received with applause from visitors.

Jillian Maslow of Manhattan, was one of the artists invited to showcase her work. Her dress titled “Target: Peace 2008 Sculpture” was made of bullets, bullet shells, dog tags and ball and chain. She had some reservations about bringing it due to the high security in the area.

“I didn’t know what to do, I wrapped it up in cloth,” Maslow said. “The taxi drove through Wall Street and the police dogs jumped up to sniff the car. I thought ‘great I’m going to go to jail for my art.’”

Art by Victoria Hunter McKenzie, who paints New York iconography on the back of used Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) MetroCards. She was approached by MTA officials in April with concerns regarding copyright infringement. Photo by Eva Saviano.

Until recently, no one had really heard of Victoria Hunter McKenzie. But she—and her now infamous MetroCard oil paintings—just got a huge media boost.

The East Village blog EV Grieve, and the much larger news blog Gothamist reported on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) effort to discuss a licensing deal and fee with McKenzie.

“Initially, I had left the magnetic strip visible and the little strip of color that says ‘Please insert this way,’” said McKenzie of the East Village. “Nothing else was visible. But I had included a photograph of what it looked like before I painted it. “

As misappropriated use of MetroCards and other transit materials has become increasingly common, MTA officials have had more run-ins with artists like McKenzie.

Peter Drake, Dean of the New York Academy of the Arts, or the NYAA, said the first artist he knew to paint on MetroCards was NYAA student Imogen Slater.

Slater, 33, came to New York from England in 2009 to earn her graduate degree in painting from the NYAA.

“I was given an assignment to paint a series of small paintings and I wanted to do something different. In my family we have a tradition of not using things for the purpose for which they were designed,” Slater said. “I collected some [cards] from subway floors and staircases on my way home. With that surface, I made a series of self-portraits that I presented at NYAA, which then became the inspiration for the MetroCard art show.”

Lower East Side gallery Sloan Fine Art hosted Single Fare 2 in March, the second annual exhibit of artworks done on MetroCards featuring more than 2,000 submissions.

“It’s come up and blown over in a sense,” said Drake of concerns about MTA. “The MTA was getting a lot of attention; people were writing about them. People saw the MetroCard as kind of a metaphor for the self…there are thousands of them, billions of people. It was a nice way to build a community.”

Drake said MTA never bothered him about the exhibit since he marketed the show as “selling art that is on or on top of or built out of MetroCards.”

A painting by Victoria Hunter McKenzie on a discarded Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) MetroCard. She saw a boost in sales after a recent run-in with MTA officials over copyright infringement.

The same could not be said for McKenzie. Three weeks ago, she received a letter from MTA that indicated her work infringed on its copyrighted intellectual property. The letter—signed by an intern at the corporation’s marketing department—stated MTA believed her work made inappropriate use of the MetroCard brand and logo.

The letter read: “The MTA has a well-established product licensing program which markets authorized versions of such products. While we have no record of your firm requesting or being granted such authorization, we are prepared to initiate discussions with you about acquiring a license from us.”

Panicked by the accusations, McKenzie removed all MetroCard-related items from her website. She later reposted the MetroCard paintings yet removed a “before picture” showing an unpainted card. McKenzie also avoided all occurrences of the word “MetroCard,” opting instead for phrasing such as “New York transit card,” and included a legal disclaimer indicating that her work is in no way endorsed by MTA.

“I only had 18 made,” McKenzie said of her subway card paintings, adding that she put them up for sale on Etsy.com. “People had ‘Liked’ them, but I hadn’t sold any until I blogged about it.”

McKenzie is a computer graphics artist for ABC News and considers art a side project. She thought the use of MetroCards would be an interesting new medium.

“I had been painting some New York iconography, New York water towers, and thought, well, I’ll do a series of these on the MetroCard, you know, icon on icon,” she said. “Someone buys a painting of New York and they get a little piece of New York.”

Sabina Sosa discovered McKenzie’s work when she read about her conflict with MTA.

“It was on Facebook via the New York Post newsfeed. I watched her video interview and was outraged,” Sosa said. She purchased two of VH McKenzie’s transit card paintings for $48 plus $2 shipping. “What I liked was it was different and familiar at the same time. When you’re done with a MetroCard, it’s garbage but Victoria made it into a miniature masterpiece.”

John Breznicky, a New York City artist who also use Etsy.com to sell poster-sized abstractions of a subway map, received a warning notification from MTA similar to that of McKenzie’s.

“I was initially contacted by an intern at the MTA requesting that I remove my listing immediately because I might be infringing on MTA copyrights,” Breznicky said. “I did not comply because I knew we had not used any MTA branding, logos, designs, etc. and I knew that our design had been changed significantly from the actual NYC subway map.”

Breznicky revised his Etsy listing to exclude the words “MTA” or “New York City subway” and has not been contacted again by MTA.

McKenzie said Mark Heavey, MTA Chief of Marketing and Advertising, told her the issue was not that she painted the cards, but that she used the MTA logo in her marketing.

She has not heard from MTA since the revision of her site, The Night Shift. McKenzie sold all of her transit card art and has been commissioned to paint more.

Small sculptures, jewelry, poster art and paintings are showcased in the Cuban Art Space in Chelsea, Manhattan. Photo by Emily Canal.

For two years, the 16-member Cuban band Los Munequitos de Matanza has planned a nation-wide U.S. tour, hoping to end in New York City for the Si Cuba festival this month.

But the Cuban government must first approve their departure from the island and issue them visas, which could put their travel plans on hold.

“It’s a pretty nail biting experience,” said Ann Rosenthal, the executive director and producer for MAPP International Productions, a nonprofit performing arts organization that staged the Los Munequitos de Matanza concert. “We have obviously made the arrangements and still don’t know for sure that they will get on a plane on April 1.”

Roadblocks to U.S. travel are not new for Cuban artists. Yet some Cubans and Cuban-Americans in New York are now facing an internal struggle between celebrating the country’s culture and condemning travel regulations imposed by its political dictatorship.

Nick Schwartz-Hall, the project line producer for Brooklyn Academy of Music, which helped organize the Si Cuba event, said between 125 and 150 Cubans will travel to New York. They will participate in music and dance performances as well as exhibits, discussions and film screenings.

“There is a rich, vibrant, diverse, contemporary culture… that has valuable contributions to make to the New York cultural world, ” Schwartz-Hall said in an e-mail. “So far, we are unaware of anyone being prevented from coming to the U.S.”

But Iraida Iturralda, vice president of the Cuban Cultural Center of New York, a non-profit organization that strives to preserve and promote Cuban and Cuban-American culture, said government restrictions will prevent some artists from attending.

“I love it. I think anything that celebrates culture is enriching,” Iturralda said. Apart from a few Cuban performers such as Telmary Diaz, one music genre Iturralda hasn’t seen in the Si Cuba line-up is hip-hop, whose artists “are very critical of the government and aren’t allowed to leave,” she said. “There is a huge hip-hop underground movement that deals with topics that are taboo.”

Carmen Pelaez, of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, a Cuban-American writer and actor who may participate in the Si Cuba festival, said she doesn’t think the festival will be lined up with “little pawns for Castro.”

“I think the intent is in the right place and I think the artists coming will reflect that,” she said, adding that events like the festival are great ways to connect the cultures but will not solve all political issues.

“The best way to break away the embargo is by getting to know each other,” Carmen said, referring to the long-time U.S. commercial blockade on the island. “It’s by getting to see your country and by them getting to see you.”

Si Cuba will be the first large-scale Cuban cultural festival in New York. The idea for the festival blossomed two years ago when several New York institutions independently planned Cuban themed events, Rosenthal said. When word spread, the venues and organizations decided to collaborate to create a citywide celebration.

“Its just amazing that it lined up in such a beautiful way that we could work together,” he said. “Its interesting that independently we were interested in taking risks to reengage with Cuban artists at the very moment we were able to,” crediting Obama’s eased travel restrictions in 2009 as the driving force behind interest in the island.

Since then, the number of artists at another celebration—the Havana Film Festival in New York—has nearly doubled, said Diana Vargas, the festival’s artistic director who will also perform in Si Cuba.

“During the Bush Administration, none of them were coming in,” she said. “It was so sad to produce a festival where the honorees were usually Cuban and we couldn’t bring any of them here.”

Paquito D’Rivera, a musician and composer of traditional Cuban music and jazz, said he’s against the Cuban dictatorship, not the artists who will perform in New York.

“You cannot leave Cuba if they do not authorize you,” said D’Rivera, a nine-time Grammy winner who moved to the United States from Cuba in 1990. “Every person that comes here is sent by the Cuban government and they are from the dictatorship.”

D’Rivera added he was disappointed that the country has seen 52 years of dictatorship and that U.S. festivals are celebrating artists approved by the Cuban government.

“We should do the same with thing with Qaddafi and ask him to organize the Libya festival with belly-dancers and shish kebob,” D’Rivera said. “I don’t see the difference.”

Lisa Nelson-Haynes looks out onto the streets of Philadelphia. Haynes has been the associate director at The Painted Bride for more than seven years and thinks African American artists deserve more coverage in the Philadelphia art community. Photo by Elizabeth Vulaj

PHILADELPHIA — When Sande Webster announced to the Philadelphia art world in 1968 that she was going to open a gallery that would feature black artists, she got a phone call from a gallery owner that shocked and infuriated her.

“She said to me, ‘I hear you have black artists in your gallery. You can’t do that. If black people come, white people will never come.’ I said, ‘You don’t even know who I am, how dare you talk to me like that, ” she recalled.

Webster slammed the phone down and embarked on her mission to bring coverage and attention of black artists’ work to the forefront of the Philadelphia art community.

The situation has improved considerably for black artists since the civil rights movement in the 1960s, but a majority of them believe their work is undervalued, she said. Webster and other gallery owners said that deep-rooted racism still pulses through the city. According to Webster, her gallery, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, and the October Gallery are the only main places in town that regularly feature black artists.

“Most white galleries would not even handle work by black artists, even today,” Webster said as she shuffled around her gallery in her brown velour track suit, pointing out a collection of painted cubes, some of which were crafted by black artists. “When I was showing the work and no one else was, I thought, ‘Why are these other galleries so stupid? It’s some of the best work out there, and maybe a lot of them (are) better than the white artists. So why are they afraid?”

Black artists say that gallery owners fear showing their work will drive away their business.

“That’s the perception,” said James Brantley, a black artist and Webster’s husband of more than 26 years. “That it might drive white collectors away. But it’s not true.”

Brantley, 65, makes conceptual landscapes and has been featured in major museum collections. Brantley says galleries are worried that museums might not pick up their work if they feature too many black artists.

For him, this treatment is all too familiar. Throughout his career, he has had to push past gallery owners who have slammed their doors on him because of his race.

“I remember being in New York, and I went to one gallery and they said to me, ‘You’re a good painter, but you’re not a good artist,’” he said. “What he obviously was saying was that I knew what my craft was, but in the art world, you have to have connections and sometimes you need a certain complexion to get that connection.”

While the art world thrives on creativity, artists live on these kinds of connections. Meeting the right people and rubbing shoulders in the top social circles is one of the main avenues for success. But young black artists, who are in the infancy stage of their careers and have not met many people yet, struggle with this.

“They are not necessarily getting invited to the galas and all those places where they can meet potential buyers or be seen,” said Lisa Nelson-Haynes, the associate director at The Painted Bride Art Center, a nonprofit arts organization that opened in 1969.

The key to success for any minority artist is to cross racial lines, said Libby Rosof, one of the co-founders of The ArtBlog, a Philadelphia-based blog.

“African Americans largely network with African Americans, white people are with white people, and Asians are with Asians,” Rosof said. “So there has to be something that causes somebody to be extraordinary and cross that race line.”

When they first began their blog, Rosof, 64, and her colleague, Roberta Fallon, 61, wanted to cover artists around the area who had not been featured in the news. They saw that young, female and black artists were not getting as much press as seasoned professionals were, and they wanted to change that. With 36,000 page views per month, they have been giving a voice to the underdogs of the art community since 2003. Although both women say they have helped change the game, they believe people still categorize and overlook black artists, and they have to work twice as hard to network their way to the top.

Haynes agrees, and said that the most successful artists of color have learned how to promote themselves almost to the point of becoming their own trademark.

“The most successful ones have mastered being able to market themselves,” she said. “But I’m sure they’re exhausted because they spend so much time marketing themselves and their work.”

Haynes, who is black, has been working for more than seven years at the Bride, where the staff not only provides venues for the artists to show their work, but also helps them find commissioning support. A lot of black artists struggle to finance the projects they want to work on.

“It’s not just about creating the work, it’s about getting the funding to create the work,” Haynes said. “Are they able to sustain themselves solely as working artists? Are they getting the grants? Most frequently, they are not. We see the struggle for getting support a lot and that definitely impacts their visibility.”

She thinks having people of color working on the boards that give grants will help black artists.

“We have to have diversity of voices and if we don’t, we’re not going to see coverage in the papers or in broadcast,” Haynes said.

Art insiders like Fallon said more doors have opened over the past several years for black artists and opportunities have steadily increased.

Auction houses are now starting to dedicate departments to black artists and Webster sees more white buyers in her gallery purchasing work by black artists. Some of the artists she features in her gallery can demand up to the thousands for their pieces, which was not the case 20 years ago.

“I’m sure there are tons of former gallery owners who are saying, ‘Why the hell wasn’t I showing Basquiat when he stumbled in here?” said Haynes. “Why didn’t I take that stuff that he was trying to sell me for 200 bucks? Now, you can’t get a Basquiat for less than $800,000.”

Haynes said one of the original founders of the Bride, Gerry Givnish, supported artists of all color simply because he loved their work.

“When artists catch a cold, minority artists catch pneumonia,” said Brantley. “But racism is no excuse for bitterness. We change the things we can and for the things we can’t change, we just go on with our lives.”